GENEVA, 29 January 1999 - One of today's
theatrical grand old men (but not even 60 years old), guru Robert
Wilson, once again vividly evokes a sense of déjà-vu,
with his performers imitating Japanese marionettes in slow motion, his
hieratic pavanes, individuals assigned a characteristic movement, all
long familiar to spectators who have seen his operatic productions in
Paris, Salzburg, Zürich or even the Metropolitan.

Scourge of
Hyacinths was composed by Tania León, to a libretto she
co-authored with Nobel prizewinner Wole Soyinka based on a play he
wrote for the BBC. After a first outing at the Munich Biennale in
1994, the work has been slightly revised and is now presented as part
of the official programme of international celebrations commemorating
the fiftieth anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights

The
opera takes place in an unidentified country, switching between the
present and flashbacks that feature Tiatin, which are not always
clearly defined as a result of the fluidity of Wilson's work. While
Wilson often comes up with beautiful and even striking images, his
passepartout approach rapidly becomes wearisome. A long essay
in the program by dramaturge Holm Keller (who is also an adviser to
the Vienna office of McKinsey) explains the Wilson method, which here
overpowers a music that only occasionally flowers into warm lyricism,
such as Tiatin's final intervention. Too often, the aural impression
is one of lots of percussion, with largely unintelligible text (in
English) for which the French subtitles were an enormous help.

Bonita
Hyman's Tiatin is as impressive for the ease with which she assumes
the Wilson mannerisms as for her rich mezzo soprano. Timothy Robert
Blevins as the other major figure, Miguel Domingo, displayed a
wide-ranging baritone that contrasted with the other low-voiced
characters, Oziel Garza-Ornelas (Emuke) and Johannes von Duisburg
(Prison Director). Vanya Abrahams, Jean-Louis Meunier and Jin-Hak Mok
rounded out the cast, while we can only assume that with the composer
at the helm all was exactly as she would have wanted.